# Pitting the Washington Post for glorifying ignorance and stupidity **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371 "2014-10-24T17:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![FuriousGeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@FuriousGeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuriousGeorge)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/261 "2014-10-28T17:53:08Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The truth is that more poor people have failed marriages because poor people lack money. No offense, I have seen a lot of reasonable well thought out intelligent posts written by you, but come on, seriously? Poor people divorce cuz they’re poor? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/262 "2014-10-28T17:55:48Z")
> [@FuriousGeorge](#): > > No offense, I have seen a lot of reasonable well thought out intelligent posts written by you, but come on, seriously? Poor people divorce cuz they’re poor? Yes, of course. What premise is it that you doubt, that conflicts over insufficient money end many marriages, or that rich people have fewer conflicts over insufficient money? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/263 "2014-10-28T17:56:22Z")
> [@FuriousGeorge](#): > > No offense, I have seen a lot of reasonable well thought out intelligent posts written by you, but come on, seriously? Poor people divorce cuz they’re poor? It seems like a reasonable point, on the face of it. Lack of money is a stressor, a potential point of contention, a limiter of options and a requirement of unpleasant options… all things which could very easily lead to a source of friction and an exacerbation of other sources. ---
**Author:** ![FuriousGeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@FuriousGeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuriousGeorge)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/264 "2014-10-28T17:58:40Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Yes, of course. What premise is it that you doubt, that conflicts over insufficient money end many marriages, or that rich people have fewer conflicts over insufficient money? The entire premise is flawed. Poor people divorce for all the same reasons rich people divorce. Rich people who have money divorce over money. Handing a check to a poor couple and making them middle class isn’t going to save their marriage. That’s incredibly simplistic, disingenuous, and patronizing. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/265 "2014-10-28T18:02:45Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Lower margins vis a vis other businesses does not indicate lack of over charging. Sure it is, or at least it is an indication. In what sense are you being “overcharged” if the higher costs are going to greater overhead? These RtO places are charging higher rates at least in part because their customers are dumb with money and default more than usual. If the ROI is the same for some other, presumably non-exploiting business, then that is an indication that the higher rates are making the business possible. And thus if the business is outlawed, or legally required to loan at rates that do not cover defaults and overhead, then the business cannot continue to operate and the poor whose credit and ability to defer gratification both suck will be confronted with the apparently unsolvable problem of how to obtain furniture without wasting more than they can afford. > [@](#): > > Ultimately support for eliminating these types of businesses is an example of arrogance. _‘We know what’s better for you than you do, so we will not let you make these choices’._ Combine that with _‘We don’t approve of your business so we will shut you down’._ No argument with this, though. Again, if you agree on principle that we need to craft a narrowly construed law to prevent the poor and stupid from buying furniture that is too expensive, do we then craft a narrowly construed law to say they can’t smoke, or play the lottery, or buy $200 sneakers, or eat at McDonald’s, or buy drugs, or get pregnant with another child they cannot afford? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/266 "2014-10-28T18:04:00Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t have any problem with the premise that social and legal structures change behaviors, and we should build them to incent the right behaviors. I do have a problem with the belief that the poor are unvirtuous and therefore there is no need to consider and reconsider our social and legal structures to try to have fewer poor people. > > And I think it is good if we are very specific about the factors inside and outside the control of poor people, and how we are encouraging or discouraging certain decisions. Throwing up our hands and saying “bad decisions,” and then grouping in a bunch of stuff like length of marriage that is also an outcome rather than cause of poverty, will not lead us to success. But the point is that continually protecting people from the consequences of poor decisions is one big factor that leads to continued irresponsibility and therefore results in more “poor” people. (I put poor in quotes because perhaps the biggest factor in the continued high level of poor people is the constant redefining of “poor” upwards, so that people who have adequate food, homes, vehicles and so on are “poor” if they don’t have everything that a lot of other people have.) You seem to be (unless I’m misunderstanding you) acknowledging the idea of incenting responsible behaviour only in theory, while excluding it from consideration when it comes to the “_need to consider and reconsider our social and legal structures to try to have fewer poor people_”. And again, the important thing is that there’s nothing that is completely “outside the control of poor people”. There are some people who have less natural inclination for responsible behaviour than other people, but even for these people there’s a broad range of responsibility that they’re capable of falling out on. Those who focus exclusively on making these people into victims of genetics or circumstances are essentially enabling their falling out on the lower end of their own personal spectrum of possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/267 "2014-10-28T18:11:53Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Sure it is, or at least it is an indication. In what sense are you being “overcharged” if the higher costs are going to greater overhead? It’s a logical fallacy. Your assertion goes something along the lines of, Company A makes X margin. Company B makes X-Y margin. Therefore company B is not overcharging, for some definition of overcharging. It is true that Company A can be overcharging, AND company B can be overcharging. It is true that Company A can not be overcharging, AND company B can be overcharging, based on different business practices, industries, risk tolerance, etc. Because of that, your conclusion that since other companies are making higher margins, that lower margin companies aren’t overcharging is not supported by your cite. It is also true that the term ‘overcharging’ wasn’t defined, so the whole statement is without substance. I contend there is no such thing as overcharging in a voluntary transaction. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/268 "2014-10-28T18:14:32Z")
[quote=“Shodan, post:255, topic:702371”] I have posted this a dozen times, so don’t bother asking for a cite again. A poor person in the US who [ul]Graduates from high school. [li]Does not have children he or she cannot support without government assistance, or outside marriage.[/li][li]Gets married and stays married.[/li][li]Gets a job, any job, sticks with it for at least a year, and does not quit it before securing another job[/ul]and can manage this for five years, at the end has a better than 90% chance of not being poor. None of these acts are outside the capability of the average person in the US.[/li][/QUOTE] Us liberals recognize that this is true (or close – your 90% is probably just a reasonable guess). But poor people are also far less able to absorb and recover from mistakes. A middle class or rich kid can violate some of these “rules” while still having a great chance at not being poor. Further, just by virtue of geography (among other factors), a poor kid is more likely to get sucked into bad behavior than a non-poor kid. So us liberals aim to craft policy to make it less than a herculean task to not be mired in poverty _even when someone has a kid they’re not ready for, or has a criminal record, or is a layabout until they’re 25_, or other stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/269 "2014-10-28T18:53:07Z")
> [@FuriousGeorge](#): > > The entire premise is flawed. Poor people divorce for all the same reasons rich people divorce. Rich people who have money divorce over money. Handing a check to a poor couple and making them middle class isn’t going to save their marriage. That’s incredibly simplistic, disingenuous, and patronizing. Poor people divorce at a higher rate than rich people. Why? The “incredibly simplistic, disingenuous, and patronizing” explanations are that poor people are unvirtuous, or bad at finding spouses, or whatever. The explanation supported by actual social science is that one of the key conflicts in marriage is over money. And poor people have more conflicts over money. Moreover, money helps on the other end to in resolving conflicts. Rich people can pay for marriage counseling, nice vacations, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/270 "2014-10-28T18:55:54Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > It’s a logical fallacy. Your assertion goes something along the lines of, Company A makes X margin. Company B makes X-Y margin. Therefore company B is not overcharging, for some definition of overcharging. > > It is true that Company A can be overcharging, AND company B can be overcharging. It is true that Company A can not be overcharging, AND company B can be overcharging, based on different business practices, industries, risk tolerance, etc. Because of that, your conclusion that since other companies are making higher margins, that lower margin companies aren’t overcharging is not supported by your cite. I suppose you are correct that it would depend on the definition of “over-charging”. The purpose of comparing companies is, if company X is making a profit of 6% and company B is making a profit of 6%, then if A isn’t over-charging then neither is B, even if B’s services cost more. > [@](#): > > It is also true that the term ‘overcharging’ wasn’t defined, so the whole statement is without substance. I contend there is no such thing as overcharging in a voluntary transaction. If that’s true, then you are right, because no company is overcharging. I am not sure I accept that, but it does follow. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/271 "2014-10-28T18:59:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So us liberals aim to craft policy to make it less than a herculean task to not be mired in poverty _even when someone has a kid they’re not ready for, or has a criminal record, or is a layabout until they’re 25_, or other stuff like that. But in doing so, you also lessen the disincentive to do these things, which increases the number of people who do so. There’s no way to do one without the other. The thing is that the more direct aspect is the one in which the liberal approach is positive. The other aspect is more indirect. So the “feel good” approach is the liberal one. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/272 "2014-10-28T19:03:01Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > But the point is that continually protecting people from the consequences of poor decisions is one big factor that leads to continued irresponsibility and therefore results in more “poor” people. I agree that this is theoretically possible. I am not persuaded this is actually happening in the case of poverty in America. What is the evidence supporting that point? > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > (I put poor in quotes because perhaps the biggest factor in the continued high level of poor people is the constant redefining of “poor” upwards, so that people who have adequate food, homes, vehicles and so on are “poor” if they don’t have everything that a lot of other people have.) This is a fallacy. We used to define poverty by the stuff you owned, like TVs and cars, because that was a pretty good indicator of the rest of your life and budget. If you had a car, you could also afford child care, medicine, a minimal level of education to get a job that paid enough to live on, etc. But that’s no longer true. Lots of people own color televisions but die from inability to afford medical care. Lots of people have cell phones but spend some months not getting enough to eat. This change wasn’t because poor people lost all sense of priorities. It is because in modern America stuff got pretty cheap and services got really expensive. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > You seem to be (unless I’m misunderstanding you) acknowledging the idea of incenting responsible behaviour only in theory, while excluding it from consideration when it comes to the “_need to consider and reconsider our social and legal structures to try to have fewer poor people_”. No, I don’t intend to exclude it at all. I think incentives are important. I just think not everything that conservatives think is an incentive is one, and not every behavior that conservatives think respond to incentives does. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > And again, the important thing is that there’s nothing that is completely “outside the control of poor people”. There are some people who have less natural inclination for responsible behaviour than other people, but even for these people there’s a broad range of responsibility that they’re capable of falling out on. Those who focus exclusively on making these people into victims of genetics or circumstances are essentially enabling their falling out on the lower end of their own personal spectrum of possibilities. I am not suggesting that there’s no such thing as successfully trying hard to make your life better. I am suggesting that most people are poor despite working hard, in a great many cases much harder than everyone else. And that you must judge effort contextually. Just because you lived on ramen noodles and slept in a cardboard box in graduate school (like the rest of us) doesn’t mean you could do so in another context, with another set of inputs and life experiences. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/273 "2014-10-28T19:05:42Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > But in doing so, you also lessen the disincentive to do these things, which increases the number of people who do so. There’s no way to do one without the other. I don’t believe this disincentive is significant for anyone but an extreme minority, and I believe it’s heavily outweighed by the benefit it provides (when the policy is well-crafted and well-executed) to decent but flawed people. > [@](#): > > The thing is that the more direct aspect is the one in which the liberal approach is positive. The other aspect is more indirect. So the “feel good” approach is the liberal one. I don’t understand what you’re saying here. ---
**Author:** ![Fallen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@Fallen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fallen)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/274 "2014-10-28T19:06:24Z")
Shodan, I’m not sure if you’ve laid out precisely what in your mind qualifies as “poor”. I also don’t see how being married avoids or brings one _out of poverty_. To be sure, a significant driver for pairing up (whether or not it’s with a roommate to whom you’re married) is to raise one’s standard of living by sharing expenses or having someone else cover those expenses, but … I don’t get how married = not poor. In my experience, people will tend to put high on a list of reasons to AVOID divorce, once married, as wanting to avoid any decrease in their standard of living. I don’t see how “any job” equates to a lack of poverty regardless of how many years one has the job. Things have changed since the powers that be decided they’d worry less about the quality of education. I’ve noted a marked change in the last 30 years, and what has been wrought by the less than best and brightest making their way into the teaching profession, along with all the standardized mandatory testing nonsense has been demonstrated as failed policy. For one, whereas it used to be that many minimum wage jobs were primarily for non-adults who didn’t need to rely on those jobs to support themselves, I trust we can agree that’s no longer the case. It’s probably best if you don’t (like most humans do) use percentages pulled out of their posterior (“better than 90% chance of not being poor”). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/275 "2014-10-28T19:21:12Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Poor people divorce at a higher rate than rich people. Why? > > The “incredibly simplistic, disingenuous, and patronizing” explanations are that poor people are unvirtuous, or bad at finding spouses, or whatever. The explanation supported by actual social science is that one of the key conflicts in marriage is over money. And poor people have more conflicts over money. Moreover, money helps on the other end to in resolving conflicts. Rich people can pay for marriage counseling, nice vacations, etc. It ain’t so simple. For example, research has shown that people of the same income who accept social security are more likely to divorce than people who don’t. > **[Couples who receive government assistance report less marital satisfaction,...](https://phys.org/news/2011-09-couples-marital-satisfaction-commitment.html)** > > For better or worse, marital quality influences the well-being of couples and those around them. In addition, economic and social hardships can reduce overall happiness within marriages. According to a new study from the University of Missouri,... The issue is this: that “being poor” may not, in and of itself be the “cause” of the dissatisfaction - it may be that the dissatisfaction, and the poverty, are both arguably “caused by” (or at least “related to”) other factors - such as drug abuse, physical or mental issues, etc. > [@](#): > > “It’s likely there are pre-existing or co-existing issues that occur in addition to the receipt of government assistance,” Schramm said. “Possible explanations for the relationship among income, government assistance and marriage include mental health issues, psychiatric disorders, physical handicaps and substance abuse problems.” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/276 "2014-10-28T19:23:59Z")
No debate from me there. Poor people are also more likely to struggle with issues of addiction, disability, etc. Absolutely. And it is difficult to try to untangle the directions of causation. But **Shodan’s** claim is that almost everyone can get married and keep a healthy marriage going (and graduate from high school, etc., which involves a similar set of factors), and that people remain poor because they fail to do so. I don’t think any of the social science research bears that out. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/277 "2014-10-28T19:55:28Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I agree that this is theoretically possible. I am not persuaded this is actually happening in the case of poverty in America. What is the evidence supporting that point? I don’t have anything past empirical evidence and human nature. I’m not aware of any studies which support either position. > [@](#): > > This is a fallacy. We used to define poverty by the stuff you owned, like TVs and cars, because that was a pretty good indicator of the rest of your life and budget. If you had a car, you could also afford child care, medicine, a minimal level of education to get a job that paid enough to live on, etc. But that’s no longer true. Lots of people own color televisions but die from inability to afford medical care. Lots of people have cell phones but spend some months not getting enough to eat. This change wasn’t because poor people lost all sense of priorities. It is because in modern America stuff got pretty cheap and services got really expensive. This seems like a fallacy to me. You look at old pictures of poor people and they have holes in their clothing and in the sides of their houses and so on, and have literally nothing to eat on many occasions. By those standards, poor people today are doing darn well. The level of medical care that “poor” people can get for free these days at any ER far surpasses (both on a relative and absolute basis) what poor people had years ago. No, what changed is in what’s defined as poor. People like you say “inability to afford medical care” because you’ve defined care at the free clinic or ER as below the acceptable level of medical care, and you’ve similarly defined the largely well-fed “poor” population in this country as not “getting enough to eat” because you’ve defined standards upwards in this area as well. > [@](#): > > No, I don’t intend to exclude it at all. I think incentives are important. I just think not everything that conservatives think is an incentive is one, and not every behavior that conservatives think respond to incentives does. OK, what specifically do you think is not an incentive and/or does not respond to incentives? > [@](#): > > I am not suggesting that there’s no such thing as successfully trying hard to make your life better. I am suggesting that most people are poor despite working hard, in a great many cases much harder than everyone else. And that you must judge effort contextually. Just because you lived on ramen noodles and slept in a cardboard box in graduate school (like the rest of us) doesn’t mean you could do so in another context, with another set of inputs and life experiences. Anyone could “live on ramen noodles and sleep in a cardboard box” as well as anyone else, if that’s what’s available. That’s not what we’re discussing. What we’re discussing is whether someone would be more motivated to work hard and/or be responsible about spending priorities if the alternative was living on ramen noodles and sleeping in a cardboard box, than that same person would be if the alternative was some abstract idea of making a better future years down the line. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/278 "2014-10-28T20:06:30Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > People like you say “inability to afford medical care” because you’ve defined care at the free clinic or ER as below the acceptable level of medical care, and you’ve similarly defined the largely well-fed “poor” population in this country as not “getting enough to eat” because you’ve defined standards upwards in this area as well. The point was that using material possessions to judge poverty in different eras is a bad measure since in an advanced industrialized economy we increasingly make stuff more cheaply but pay more for essential services. Of course it is true that a poor person in America in 2014 is better off than a poor person in America in 1914. And no doubt that pattern is pretty much true going back centuries. But so what? Why make that observation in this context? It seemed to me that you were suggesting it is not so bad to be poor, since I saw no other reason to make this observation. So I was pointing out that it’s not about not affording a nicer couch. It’s about not affording, say, medical treatment to save your life. Or not having any food insecurity. Or not having to drop your kid off at that sketchy neighbor who you just hope won’t kill all the kids in a fire, much less teach the preschoolers the ABCs. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > OK, what specifically do you think is not an incentive and/or does not respond to incentives? As relevant to this thread, I don’t think banning high-interest consumer loans has any appreciable affect on the incentives for poor people by shielding people from their bad decisions. I am not sure I support that policy for other reasons, but I think the incentives argument is wrong as applied there. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > What we’re discussing is whether someone would be more motivated to work hard and/or be responsible about spending priorities if the alternative was living on ramen noodles and sleeping in a cardboard box, than that same person would be if the alternative was some abstract idea of making a better future years down the line. I’m not quite understanding this sentence. Can you re-phrase? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/279 "2014-10-28T20:24:21Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Of course it is true that a poor person in America in 2014 is better off than a poor person in America in 1914. And no doubt that pattern is pretty much true going back centuries. But so what? Why make that observation in this context? It seemed to me that you were suggesting it is not so bad to be poor, since I saw no other reason to make this observation. “This context” was my statement about continued high levels of poverty. I used quotes around the word “poor” in that statement, because I think a lot of the continued high level of poverty is simply because “poverty” is relative to a changing standard. In that context, the observation was apt, and it now seems like you agree with it. > [@](#): > > As relevant to this thread, I don’t think banning high-interest consumer loans has any appreciable affect on the incentives for poor people by shielding people from their bad decisions. I would probably agree with that - the word “appreciable” being the crucial word here - but that’s because high interest consumer loans, while the focus of this thread, are probably not that prominent as a factor in general. But to the extent that they’re harmful they’re an incentive. The overall approach is what’s significant, and the same approach applied to a lot of individually-insignificant issues becomes cumulatively significant. > [@](#): > > I’m not quite understanding this sentence. Can you re-phrase? You introduced “liv[ing] on ramen noodles and sle[eping] in a cardboard box” in the context of a person’s capacity for sacrifice and deferred gratification. My response is that what we’re discussing at this point is not whether different people and in different circumstances have different capacities for sacrifice and deferred gratification, but what the effect of softening the consequences _does to_ people’s capacity for sacrifice and deferred gratification. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371/280 "2014-10-28T20:39:17Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > “This context” was my statement about continued high levels of poverty. I used quotes around the word “poor” in that statement, because I think a lot of the continued high level of poverty is simply because “poverty” is relative to a changing standard. In that context, the observation was apt, and it now seems like you agree with it. I think you were trying to suggest more than you’re letting on. “Poor” means something different in this society than it does in China, just it connotes a different standard of living from being poor in 1914. This same phenomenon is true of many labels you choose not to put scare quotes on. But if you really weren’t suggesting that the difference in poverty over the centuries has any relevance to whether we should be concerned about it now, then I misunderstood you and the point is a tangent. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I would probably agree with that - the word “appreciable” being the crucial word here - but that’s because high interest consumer loans, while the focus of this thread, are probably not that prominent as a factor in general. But to the extent that they’re harmful they’re an incentive. The overall approach is what’s significant, and the same approach applied to a lot of individually-insignificant issues becomes cumulatively significant. And that’s fair enough. So let me be more absolute. I don’t think a prohibition on high-interest consumer loans would have any impact along the dimension you describe–i.e., by shielding the poor from bad consequences of bad decisions and thereby encouraging such bad decisions. It might be a good or bad idea for other reasons, but I don’t think this theory about making sure people have the opportunity to harm themselves with bad decisions so that they make fewer bad decisions has any relevance to this particular policy choice. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > You introduced “liv[ing] on ramen noodles and sle[eping] in a cardboard box” in the context of a person’s capacity for sacrifice and deferred gratification. My response is that what we’re discussing at this point is not whether different people and in different circumstances have different capacities for sacrifice and deferred gratification, but what the effect of softening the consequences _does to_ people’s capacity for sacrifice and deferred gratification. I am skeptical that one’s capacity for sacrifice and deferred gratification responds to incentives that way. Is there any evidence that people who experience more harm from their bad decisions become better at deferred gratification? I think there is a lot of research that has been done on that since the days of the marshmallow experiments, and I don’t know much about what it says, but I’ll be surprised if it is consistent with your model. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-the-washington-post-for-glorifying-ignorance-and-stupidity/702371.md?page=15)